Maryland Woman Ticketed For Driving 63 MPH In 65-MPH Zone

After a police officer pulled her over on Interstate 95 for driving 2 mph under the speed limit in the left lane, the woman refused to remain silent about it. Speaking to a local NBC affiliate, the unnamed woman said she couldn’t believe that an officer would pull her over for obeying the speed limit.

The woman said she was driving 63 mph in the 65-mph zone because weather conditions were difficult for driving — there were heavy winds at the time and the woman said the lower speed was necessary as a precaution.

“Sometimes when it’s dangerous, you have to do what you can to stay safe,” she said.

Police claimed a different story. They said the woman didn’t belong in the left lane, which is for speedier drivers passing those in other lanes.

Many on the internet agreed with police. When a news article about the ticket for driving 63 mph in a 65-mph zone was posted to Reddit, most commenters took the side of the police officers. Many of them argued that it is unsafe to obstruct the flow of traffic by driving slowly in the passing lane, while a few sided with the woman and pointed out that those in the passing lane shouldn’t legally be driving over 65 mph anyway.

That’s an argument that her local branch of AAA seems to agree with.

“The reason [the ticket] is silly is because it’s sending the wrong message,” said John Townsend of AAA Mid-Atlantic. “And that is, ‘We will tolerate you driving at more than the speed limit, but it you drive below the speed limit, then you’re penalized for that.'”

Do you think police were right to ticket the woman driving 63 mph in a 65-mph zone?

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Comments

That's Maryland, ticketed no matter what! So you get a ticket if you go 63 MPH and a ticket if you go 66 MPH. Maryland has sooooo many cops on I-95 giving out tickets. I wish they'd solve a real crime (Baltimore has some actual crime). Should people use the left lane as the passing lane, yes. Should the police actually be about safety and not money and maybe pull the lady over and say "Hey, when not passing please use the right lane" yes. And that would work, and that makes the most sense and that would be just fine by the citizens they are supposed to serve.

Absolutely, any driver tooling slowly in the passing lane should be dealt with. That lane is made for passing. If she felt a need to drive slowly, which is perfectly OK, she can do it fine and dandy in the right land, aka "the slow lane."